Inviting a cat to live in a distillery is like offering a child free room and board at a Disney World theme park. In a distillery, there are tall stacks of shipping pallets to climb, oak barrels to jump on, pipes to nimbly tightrope-walk across and — of course — a steady supply of rodents to hunt.

People and cats have always had a businesslike relationship. Where human agriculture goes, a smorgasbord of rats and mice are sure to follow. And distilleries, which turn various grains into grogs, have been battling these pests for centuries. Distillery Cats, a new book by Brad Thomas Parsons, is based on his popular Instagram chronicle of these mousers.

29 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/8/17 You Are In A Maze Of Twisty God Stalks. A Hollow Voice Says “Last Fifth!””

@1 interested me because I’ve visited Highland Park, which claimed to be the only whisky distillery still doing its own malting; a malting floor is much more like a rodent buffet than sacked grain is, so they had a cat — but weren’t certain they would get another as the new maltmaster (in 2005) didn’t favor them.

Pictures of the start of Australia’s solar-powered–car race. I want to know how the one car that extended its roof beyond the rear bumper (to support more solar cells) does compared to the others — it seems like an obvious improvement, so there’s got to be some reason they don’t all do it.

AOL Instant Messenger – one of the most influential and important instant messaging chat clients of all time – will shut down for good on December 15… AOL said on its website that people still on the platform cannot save or export their buddy lists, and that “data associated with AIM will be deleted after December 15.”

The highlights included the mass author signing, where I talked to a lot of old friends, the WSFA Small Press Award ceremony (congratulations Ursula!), and the Eye of Argon reading, complete with acted out parts and the text projected onto a big screen.

I like the projection of Eye of Argon on a large screen. And while I’ve heard that various East Coast cons have been acting it out (likely having come up with the idea themselves), I think Baycon was the first to do so, having been doing it for over a decade. I often played Grignr at first (the roles change during the play as people get their turn to read or are back out there playing another role when a previous role comes back on stage).

Well, I succumbed to temptation: having finished Gladstone’s The Ruin of Angels, I made the next thing on my list be Matt Wallace’s “Envy of Angels”. Given the theme of Wallace’s titles, succumbing to temptation seems somewhat appropriate.

The Gladstone was terrific: he just keeps getting better.
The Wallace was fun, and I’ll probably read the rest of the series eventually.
For now, though, Provenance beckons.

I want to know how the one car that extended its roof beyond the rear bumper (to support more solar cells) does compared to the others

If you mean the red car in the second image, I’m fairly certain the overhang is in the front and not the back. Anyway, the total area of solar panels doesn’t seem that much larger than the other designs – it seems more like they’ve moved the front axle backwards than extended the solar panel forward.

@Chip: There’s a maximum limit on the total area of solar cells depending on the class being entered and the technology used, so the deck extensions are just to get the allowed area on what is a tiny vehicle.

I’m trying to decide whether I should go watch the new Blade Runner this week. On the plus side, seems it might be visually impressive on the big screen and in Turkish cinemas you always have an intermission so people can go smoke, so the length is manageable. On the negative side, the film has been censored here with nudity and discussions of evolution being removed. I’m not that keen on rewarding censorship.

@Johan: thanks for correcting; I can see what’s wrong and figure how it happened, but I don’t know why the display software shows it as a valid link.

@Anthony: if the overhang is in front, how do they see low obstacles? OTOH, somebody may be content with leading overhang, as the first few pix in “Day 2 Action” (2nd cell in Johan’s 2nd link) suggest that both leading and trailing overhangs are used. But the little red car seems to have a much more extreme overhang (almost the length of the chassis), so the question stands; is there an advantage to making the chassis so small (while somehow fitting in the class — do class definitions not include weight?) that the overhang is legal? I get that the race isn’t testing all the conditions under which such cars could be used, but I’ve been in the neighborhood of the course and would expect it to be a reasonable test of a car’s durability. I guess we’ll find out; from the details in Johan’s link it looks like this is the Western Sydney car, whose page shows it as 6th place after 2 days despite not being listed in the overall standings for day 2 (scroll down). Yes, I’m geeking ridiculously over this.

@Chip: The regulations run to a 50 page PDF. Can’t see any mention of weight, other than the driver plus ballast must be at least 80kg and there’s a weight limit on battery storage. Forward and sideways vision (page 30) must be direct, no mirrors or electronics, rear vision can use mirrors and electronics but from the pictures on page 31 of the regs ot looks like a sizeable blind spot directly behind is acceptable.

The Rolling Stone has an interview with Daniel Richards who wrestles as The Progressive Liberal in Appalachia. Turns out that it’s not much of an act. In the interview they discuss if Donald Trump is just a wrestling heal.

Still no word on SJW Credentials. Maybe he’ll address it on his recently launched website.